If anything, the prevalence of uniforms and highly tailored garments is the strongest costume theme. The women mostly wear 1890s gowns and tailor-made blouse and skirt combinations, while the men wear uniforms and suits.

While the historical period in Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (1993) was pretty ambiguous, this Hamlet is basically set in the late Victorian era. The costume designer was Alexandra Byrne in her first movie project (she’d only done TV and theater previously). The main filming location was the grand baroque Blenheim Palace, so you know this won’t be a medieval or renaissance set story. Ken, of course, stars as the melancholy Dane, and he gathered an all-star cast with Kate Winslet as Ophelia, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Julie Christie as Gertrude, and cameos by everyone from Judi Dench to Robin Williams. It took Kenneth Branagh to make this happen and do so in spectacular fashion. There were Olivier‘s and Zeffirelli‘s versions earlier, but nobody had the guts to put every word of Shakespeare’s Hamlet on film for over four hours.

Branagh hamlet full movie